


Walk in the Dark

by Anonymous



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)
Genre: Didn't Know They Were Dating, Domestic Fluff, Idiots in Love, Kitchen Sex, M/M, Mutual Pining, Peter Parker is a Mess, Rimming, Roommates, Sharing a Bed
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-19
Updated: 2021-01-31
Packaged: 2021-03-17 08:09:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,152
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28845864
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: When Tony Stark shows up at Peter's doorstep asking to stay with him for a while, he can't exactly tell him no. But there's no doubt in his mind that spending his days - and his nights - so close to the man he's been in love with for years can only end in disaster.
Relationships: Peter Parker/Tony Stark
Comments: 20
Kudos: 89
Collections: Anonymous





	1. Uninvited Guest

When the knock comes at the door, Peter can’t really say he’s all there exactly. He got in from patrol around six, just as the sun was coming up, and now it’s … He reaches for his phone, fumbles so it hits him in the face, and eventually manages to check the time. _9:15. Fuck._

The knocking continues, and he throws himself off of the mattress and stands, staggering to the door with eyes squinted, grumbling the whole way. He’s expecting Doreen or maybe Kamala, really the only two of his friends who are remotely inclined to be morning people. He’s going to murder whoever it is. Slowly.

“M’coming!” he mutters in the direction of the door, stumbling into a corner.

He pauses to lean his head against the front door for a moment. Just a quick little snooze, his brain says, but the knocking recommences, jarring him back to wakefulness.

Peter swings the door open grumpily, head still tilted down in exhaustion.

“Whatchamherearlyhmm?” he says, scrubbing at his eyes.

Then he notices the shoes. Red and orange suede Gucci sneakers that could only really belong to one person. His eyes move up the navy dress pants to the graphic kitten tee and perfectly tailored jacket. His gaze stops there, unwilling or unable to move past the collar of the shirt, where a sprinkling of peppery chest hair is just visible.

“Oh good, you are alive,” Tony says.

Peter blinks slowly a couple times, notices the luggage arrayed in the hallway, tries hard to concentrate.

“Mr. Stark,” he says, voice gravelly from sleep. “Did you need a ride to the airport?”

Which doesn’t actually make any sense, because Tony has a private jet, and a helicopter to take him to the jet. Also Peter doesn’t have a car or a driver’s license.

“Not exactly with me, are you sweetheart?”

The warmth of his tone and the pet name draw Peter’s eyes up to his face. Tony looks really, really good. His beard is freshly trimmed, all sharp lines framing lips quirked in a smile just for Peter. The smile crinkles the corners of his eyes, shaded behind orange-tinted glasses.

“So listen kid …” Tony says, and Peter should be paying attention, but it’s early, and he hasn’t had coffee, and Tony’s lips are even more captivating when they’re moving. So he lets himself drift a little.

He floats back to a week ago, he and Tony walking back from the movies together, a midnight showing of Casablanca, shoulders and knuckles bumping as they made their way to the tower. Tony turning to him when they got to the entrance, pulling him in and turning Peter’s jacket collar up to better block the light drizzle that had started to fall.

“You could come up,” he said, like he did every time. “For some coffee. Or a drink. Stay the night. The weather’s not great.”

Peter always said no when he made this request. It was hard enough acting normal around Tony during their late-night adventures. If he actually went home with him, spent the night, there was no way he could keep it together. He was only invited out of politeness anyway.

Besides, Mrs. Holzman in 3B would be upset if he was late to take Sir Wigglesworth on his morning walk.

The midnight outings had started about six months ago when Peter, freshly back from his junior year in Italy, had started a heavy patrolling rotation to make up for having been gone so long. It didn’t make a lot of logical sense. Wade had been covering the territory for him, and so many people mistook him for Spider-Man anyway that Queens barely knew he had been out of commission. But guilt doesn’t work like that.

Anyway, he’d swung by the tower just to check on things one night, because there’s a lot of valuable stuff in there, and sometimes Peter just likes to be sure, and there had been Mr. Stark out on a walk at 1 a.m. trying to beat back a wave of insomnia. Peter joined him, and they spent a few hours strolling through Manhattan’s quiet streets.

It had been nice, peaceful, to walk with Tony, talking about science and movies and even a little bit about the nightmares they both had that kept them up. Around dawn, Peter walked him to the tower and swung home for a quick nap before class.

Then it just kept happening. At first by accident, but later on they arranged things. Midnight showings of old movies, interludes in Japanese Karaoke booths that never closed, trips to hole-in-the-wall 24-hour diners and noodle places around the city, a comprehensive study of New York’s all-night donut shops and intense arguments about their subsequent rankings. At least a couple times a week, when Tony wasn’t off on a business trip, they’d end up together at the end of Peter’s patrol.

Tony had access to a whole lot more things to do before sunrise than Peter did. One night he bribed a guard to get them into the MoMA at 2 a.m. for an early look at an exhibit, another time they took a helicopter ride out to Montauk where, when the sun rose and the fishing trawlers started coming in, Tony made Peter try his first ever oyster, fresh from the ocean, briny and bright on his tongue.

In his head, Peter started to think of these interludes at dates, though he never would have said that out loud. He knew Tony didn’t think of them in the same way, but he had harbored his crush on the man for so long that he couldn’t help but weave daydreams around so much uninterrupted time spent together.

He’s usually good at maintaining the line in his head. The big red line with Do Not Cross signs posted all along it. Peter’s still not sure what spurred him that night to leap over it. Maybe it was the way the raindrops caught in Tony’s dark hair, sparkling in the lamplight. Or maybe it was the snakes still twisting in his stomach from the way Rick said “Here’s looking at you, kid,” to Illsa in the movie, and it had sounded unsettlingly familiar. Then again, maybe it was the way Tony’s cold fingers lingered on his neck after he adjusted Peter’s collar, skimming his rabbiting pulse point.

Whatever the reasoning, Peter’s breath went shallow and his brain went fuzzy right along with that line he wasn’t supposed to cross. He leaned forward until his nose brushed Tony’s and the fingers at his throat pushed up into his damp hair. He didn’t really wait for a reaction, then. Just surged forward, eyes closed, and sealed their lips together.

Tony’s fingers pulled at his hair, and then he was kissing back, mouth falling open so that their warm breaths mingled together. Peter tried to press it, make it deep and dirty, because he was pretty sure he was only getting one shot at this in that liminal space between dark and dawn when Tony hadn’t realized yet that he should say no.

Instead, the other man gentled him, held his face between both hands, thumbs stroking at his jaw, and let their tongues play slow and lazy.

Peter had drifted on that kiss for who knows how long. He does the same now, lost in memory even as Tony talks. That night, when the kiss ended, Peter had kept his eyes closed as he stepped back and turned, fled into the darkness completely unwilling to see the inevitable look of pity or rejection on Tony’s face. They haven’t spoken since. Seven long days of radio silence.

Now he blinks himself back to reality as Tony’s voice takes on the upward cadence of a question.

“So it’s okay then?” he asks, a hand reflexively gripping and releasing the handle on one of the suitcases behind him. “I can stay for a bit?”

Stay. _Stay?_ Okay, so Peter missed something big, then. Something that came in between opening the door and Tony’s question just now. What had he been talking about? Something about levels? Levels like in the tower. Maybe they’re fumigating? Or doing construction? The details don’t actually matter that much. Tony needs a place to stay, and instead of going to a hotel or hightailing it up to the Avengers compound, he’s decided to crash a Peter’s place.

It doesn’t make any sense in a way that starts a headache forming behind Peter’s eyes, but also maybe it does. Because they haven’t spoken for seven days. Not even a text or a message sent with Karen and Friday as middle-school-style go-betweens. Maybe this is Tony’s olive branch. His way of saying that they can put it all behind them, forget Peter’s horrifying faux pas and be friends again. Peter would be surprised, but he’s become acclimatized to the way Tony uses big gestures in lieu of words after years of exposure.

Considered in that light, this step isn’t even remotely surprising. And Peter isn’t foolish enough not to jump at the out he’s been given.

“Of course you can stay,” he says over a stifled yawn, backing up so that Tony has room to step inside the apartment. “Long as you want.”

Tony gives him a funny look as he enters, rolling a suitcase behind him.

“Not gonna lie, I was kind of hoping for a bigger reaction than that. But, you know, you’re right. Chill is good. This is good, right?”

“Sure,” Peter says over a yawn. “I’ll just … bags.”

He can feel an itch at the base of his spine where Tony’s eyes stay on him as he loads his arms down. The man has way too many bags, and Peter probably grabs too many all at once, because once he maneuvers them and himself through the doorway they all kind of tumble out into the entryway with a clash, rattle, bang.

“Wuzzat?”

Before Peter gets out anything in the way of an apology, a shirtless Wade Wilson is sitting up from the spot where he had passed out on Peter’s couch and aiming a ridiculously oversized pistol directly at Tony. Yeah, probably not the way to give him a good first impression of Peter’s place.

It takes barely a breath for Tony to push Peter behind him, one Iron gauntlet forming around his outstretched arm, repulsor aimed at Wade. Which is ridiculous because Peter is definitely better equipped to deal with a gunshot wound than Tony, but he supposes it’s a nice gesture.

“Don’t even try it, Major Pain in my Ass,” Tony growls over the high-pitched whine of the repulsor.

Wade pauses, rubs at his eyes, and then puts his hands up.

“Chillax, tin can. And next time maybe don’t sneak up on a guy with PTSD and a Desert Eagle.”

Tony ignores the input, going instead for a terse “Drop it.” Wade does, quite literally, the gun discharging into the wall as it hits the floor. Tony tries to push Peter back further at the sound of the gun going off, but he’s so done with this. He muscles past Tony’s extended mom arm to grab the gun, put the safety on, and drop it into the lockbox set beside the front door for just this purpose.

“Wade, what did we say about guns in the apartment?” he prompts.

“They get checked at the door,” Wade mutters, petulantly.

“And?”

“And no gunfire indoors.”

“That’s right,” Peter says, then turns to Tony. “And that goes for you, too.”

Tony splutters at this admonishment, but Peter waves away the protest.

“House rules. So, um, I’d say you can have the couch, but Wade crashes there … kind of a lot? After patrols. So, uh …”

“Bedroom’s fine with me,” Tony says with a chuckle. “Just lead the way.”

“Oh,” Peter says, only now realizing this is the first time Tony’s been in his apartment. It’s just so small and honestly squalid compared to what the man is used to in the penthouse of Avenger’s Tower that it seemed ill-advised to invite him over. “Right. This is kind of it, unfortunately. Kitchen. Living Room.”

He points to the areas, separated only by a change of flooring from vinyl to scuffed wood.

“The bathroom’s down that hall, but, um, don’t go in there yet?” Peter says, a blush furiously forming in his cheeks thinking of the state of the place. “Wade needed some patching last night and I think it’s still a little … Red. I’ll clean it today, promise. And here’s the bedroom.”

Knowing that this room, at least, is free of gore, Peter flings the door open. He second guesses his assumption, however, when he sees Tony’s eyes go wide after a glance inside. Peter survey’s it quickly. Okay, the bedsheets are a rumpled mess, and there’s some dirty laundry that hasn’t made it to the hamper, but that’s no reason for Tony to … Oh. _Oh shit._

“Um,” The noise that comes from Peter’s mouth is more of a high-pitched whine than any word. He’d needed something to help him relax after a patrol that had gotten his adrenaline pumping. But he definitely should have put the dildo up properly instead of leaving it standing tall and proud – cherry red with gold accents – right there on his bedside table.

Brain on autopilot, Peter rushes over to the table so he can use his body as a screen while he grips the toy behind his back and slips it back into the drawer where it belongs.

“I’ve got fresh sheets somewhere,” he says, stumbling over the words and feeling his face burning.

“Kid. Relax.”

Tony holds up his hands in a pacifying gesture.

“This is great. Thank you. I’ll just put my shit in here?”

“Y-yes,” Peter nods. “I can clear out a drawer for you?”

“Sure, that’d be nice.”

The smile Tony gives him is warm and wide, and it settles Peter’s nerves a little.

“Cool,” he says. “I’ll just—”

The thought gets interrupted when the alarm on his phone starts going off, playing “Who Let the Dogs Out,” because Peter is a child who finds that amusing most days.

“Shit, Sir Wigglesworth!”

Tony’s eyebrows shoot skyward even as Peter rustles around in his laundry hamper for jeans and a t-shirt that don’t smell too foul, trying to do the sniff test as surreptitiously as possible since Tony is _right there._

“I’m sorry, what’s happening right now?”

“Mrs. Holzman’s dog,” Peter says, pulling an acceptable shirt over his head. “From downstairs. I walk him most mornings so she doesn’t have to take the stairs too many times a day. He’s afraid of the elevator.”

He says the last just as Tony’s mouth starts to form the word.

“So I gotta go do that, and then I’ve got class for most of the day, then a meeting with JJ at the paper.”

“I can’t believe you keep working for that rag.”

Peter groans and rolls his eyes maybe more dramatically than is called for. They’ve had this argument just so many times, and it’s exhausting.

“I know how you feel about it,” he says. “But there’s this thing called rent. Anyway, I won’t be back until late. I guess, uh, make yourself at home? There’s toast and jam if you want breakfast, and the spare key’s taped behind the light in the hall. It’s yours. I’m so sorry, Mr. Stark.”

“Go on, kid,” Tony says. “I can handle it from here.”

Peter backs out of the room, giving it one sweep for anything mortifying. There’s probably something, but he doesn’t have time to scout it out now.

Wade has migrated from the couch to the kitchen where he’s chewing on a piece of toast, freshly brewed cup of coffee in hand. Peter grabs the cup from his hands and downs it in three long gulps. He burns his tongue in the process. His brain, however, perks at the swift injection of caffeine. Maybe that means life will start feeling a little less like an extended dream sequence soon.

“Hey!” Wade protests. “That was mine, Petey.”

“Technically it was mine,” Peter says, patting him on one pock-marked shoulder. “De-biohazard the bathroom before you leave, please. We have a classy guest.”

Then he grabs his coat and heads out the door, just catching Wade’s “Oh, so you’re saying _I’m_ not classy?” before he slams the door shut.

True to his name, Sir Wigglesworth shakes his whole body in anticipation when Peter collects him from Mrs. Holzman. He takes the chubby, wheezing bulldog to do his business on the frosty sidewalk outside the building then carries him back up the stairs because he’s just that lazy.

By the time he’s completed this task, Peter’s already running late for his first class of the day, and he decides to swing to campus to save time. The cold of the January breeze in his face is bracing, but at least it serves to banish the last of the sleep from Peter’s head.

It’s only then, flipping high above the city streets, that he’s able to process the number of bags he hauled into the apartment this morning and the lack of any time period mentioned for Tony’s stay. Does … Does he live with Tony Stark now? And if he does, is there any way this doesn’t end in disaster? Peter’s stomach swoops as he reaches the trough of his swing, and he almost misses when he shoots out his next web. The answer, of course, is no.


	2. Unexpected Delights

It’s a little past eleven when Peter does finally make it home that night. He’d meant to come straight back after his meeting with JJ, but his spidey senses had perked up on the swing home, and he’d ended up having to stop a mugging, and then move a car that had stalled in the middle of the street and started causing major gridlock. By that time it seemed like a good idea to do a full sweep of the neighborhood and help out where he could. He definitely wasn’t avoiding anything. Definitely not.

He senses something is off the second he pushes open the window next to the fire escape. When he pokes his head inside, he’s hit with the smell of lemon and beeswax, and when he steps inside he nearly slips. His usually dusty, cluttered floor is polished to a high shine Peter can almost see his reflection in.

He takes a wide-eyed look around the apartment. It’s … It’s spotless. His piles of books and games are gone, now arranged neatly on the shelves. The furniture sparkles. His stained and threadbare sofa is covered with a fresh navy blue cover. And across the way, in the kitchen – now gleaming and free of the pile of dirty dishes in the sink – Tony is stirring a bubbling pot and sipping from a tall-stemmed glass of red wine.

He looks up, notices Peter just as he’s pulling his mask off, and cautiously sets both spoon and glass down carefully. Then he raises his hands in a mock surrender.

“Don’t be mad,” he says.

Peter holds a finger up while he takes another look around the room. The he heads to the bathroom, shucking out of his sweaty suit as he goes. The bathroom, too, has been scrubbed within an inch of its life. No viscera to be found anywhere. Peter swears he did not know his bathtub tiles were white this whole time.

He trades his suit for the hoodie thankfully still hung on the back of the bathroom door, and comes back out in that and his boxers.

“You cleaned?” he asks, facing Tony across the kitchen counter.

“Yes,” Tony says, eyeing him cautiously. “Or, well, I hired a team to clean. They needed, like, special certification to deal with the biological matter in the bathroom. You are mad, aren’t you? Look, I know I can be bad with the big gestures, but I just thought it would be nice for you to come home to a clean apartment and I may have gotten carried away. But can we at least accept it as something that came from a good place?”

“Um, I was gonna say thank you?” Peter says, once Tony seems to have run out of words. It’s weird to see him this nervous. Unnatural. “Why would I be mad at you for cleaning? This is … Kinda amazing. Pretty sure it didn’t look like this even when I moved in.”

“Oh,” Tony says, posture subtly relaxing. He picks his wine glass back up and takes a sip. “Well, good. That’s good.”

“You, um, you know you don’t have to do stuff like this, though, right?” Peter says, biting at his bottom lip. “You’re a guest.”

“Ah,” Tony says, and Peter can’t help but think he sounds … disappointed? “Right. Well.”

His focus shifts off of Peter, down to the pot on the stovetop, shoulder shifting millimeters into a slump. And Peter feels a pull in his gut that makes him want to fix that. He goes around to the other side of the counter and pushes himself up until he’s sitting on the chipped Formica, feet dangling and kicking lightly at the cabinets. He nudges Tony’s thigh with a toe.

“What are you making?”

“Red sauce,” Tony says, hip bumping against Peter’s leg in a friendly reply. “My Nona’s recipe. The state of your cupboard is seriously troubling, kid.”

“Hey,” Peter says. “There’s nothing wrong with Spaghetti-O’s. They’re a family favorite.”

“They’re an abomination,” Tony replies, pointing a red-stained wooden spoon in Peter’s direction. “I am not convinced they’re even food, technically speaking.”

“Snob,” Peter snorts, poking him with a toe again. He’s wearing what Peter’s come to think of as his “lab jeans,” denim soft and worn, sleeves of a gray Henley pushed up his forearms. He’s barefoot, and something in Peter preens at the man being so comfortable in this space.

“Guilty,” he replies with a flash of smile. “I’m going to make you into one too. Just wait.”

Peter does have to admit that the smell coming from the pot is mouth-watering, sweet tomatoes melding with rosemary and thyme and garlic.

“You could sound less gleeful about it,” he mutters.

“What would be the fun in that?” Tony asks. “Here. Taste.”

He holds the wooden spoon out to Peter, free hand cupped gently beneath it so as not to spill. Peter considers, briefly, taking the spoon from his hand. Instead, he leans in and closes his eyes, lets Tony bring the spoon to his lips so he can taste. The sauce bursts rich on his tongue, flavors of tomato and red wine melding with the herbs and a bright splash of lemon.

Peter really can’t help it. He groans, a low, drawn out sound, and then immediately tenses in embarrassment at the noise. Heat rushes into his face. When he finally gets brave enough to open his eyes, he finds Tony much closer than he remembers him being. He’s standing incredibly still but for a tendon quivering in his neck and his eyes, wide and dark, are trained on Peter’s face.

Peter tries very hard to ignore all of this, and the way it makes his stomach flutter and twist. He swipes Tony’s half-full glass from the counter and takes a too-big gulp. He coughs once from the dry hit of the wine in his throat, then takes another more sedate sip before Tony takes it from his fingers.

As Peter watches, he twists it elegantly by the stem, swirls it once, then places his lips directly against Peter’s own lip print, and drains the glass.

Peter presses his palms hard against the countertop in an effort to stop his limbs from trembling.

“Okay,” he says, voice frustratingly breathless. “I can admit that’s slightly better than Spaghetti-O’s.”

He can feel the vibrations of Tony’s low chuckle in the air. Then there’s a rough thumb at the corner of his mouth, and he looks up to see Tony has moved even closer.

“You’ve got a little …” he says, swiping at Peter’s skin.

Then he removes his thumb and licks the sauce off the digit in one precise movement.

Peter’s muscles tense to a painful point, and he can tell his breath is coming too fast.

“Shit,” he whispers.

Tony’s head tilts to one side, studying him intently, and Peter swears he can _feel_ the sweep of eyes across his skin. Suddenly, he seems to come to a conclusion, and everything happens very fast. His hands are on Peter’s thighs, pushing them apart at the same time that he insinuates himself between them, hooking a finger through the loose collar of Peter’s hoodie and tugging him forward until their foreheads touch.

“You are killing me, kid,” he whispers before he’s pressing hot, insistent lips against Peter’s.

The kiss is a barely-controlled fire, just on the edge of too messy and too much. Tony bites at Peter’s lips, and then thrusts his tongue inside when Peter gasps at the striking pleasure/pain that comes with the bite.

Peter’s brain feels like a faulty engine, turning over and over, but unable to fully catch and start. This can’t, it can’t be happening. Tony doesn’t _feel_ that way about him. Except, at least in this moment, he does. He acts like he wants to devour him whole. Peter moans under the onslaught, Tony’s mouth smearing across his jaw, his hand rucking up his hoodie to dig into the muscles of his back.

The sound must come out more pained than he intends, because all of a sudden the lips are gone and the fingers still. Tony’s breath puffs raggedly against Peter’s cheek and he squeezes his eyes shut in a wince.

“Tell me to stop,” he whispers. “We can take this slow. Just … Pete, if you want me to – ”

It only takes a split second for Peter to process what’s happening. Tony’s pulling away, and Peter’s almost positive that if he does that, he won’t get a second chance at this. He’s not sure how it can possibly be happening now.

With lightning-quick reflexes he wraps his legs around Tony’s waist, holding him in place while Peter presses forward, kissing Tony with as much finesse as he can manage, considering the state of his nerves.

It’s not much, but Tony doesn’t complain. He lets Peter go for a few minutes before placing a hand on his throat, a guiding thumb resting at the base of his jaw, directing. It sends a shiver down Peter’s spine, and he leans into the touch.

His other hand shifts until it’s tenderly, achingly plucking at one of Peter’s nipples. All of the breath stutters violently out of Peter’s body.

“Fuck,” he chants against Tony’s lips. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”

His cock is already hard and leaking, and he can’t restrain himself from bucking forward, rutting against the hard line of Tony’s stomach. The world comes to him in fractured pieces – the scrape of Tony’s beard against his jaw, the blinding bliss of the pressure between their bodies, the tension of holding his back bowed just so, held up like an offering. It all refuses to coalesce into a whole. Peter can’t make any sense of it.

“Please, Mr. Stark,” he rasps out, a little unsure of what exactly he’s asking for except, obviously, _more._

Tony growls and lifts Peter off the counter. For a second he just clings to the other man, then he’s being manhandled in a very satisfying way until his chest is pressed to the counter and his legs are positioned apart.

Peter certainly thinks he knows the direction this is headed, especially when his boxers pool at his feet. He vaguely registers Tony reaches over to click the burner on the stove off, which is probably wise, now he thinks about it.

He’s briefly confused when he sees the other man crouch down. Peter realizes what’s about to happen about half a second before it does. Tony whispers something that might or might not be “So fucking pretty.” Then he licks a hot stripe across Peter’s hole and things get a lot hazier.

It’s wet and hot and just _so much._ Peter grasps the edge of the counter, balancing on his toes. The particle board crumbles to bits under his grip, and a small part of Peter’s brain thinks _Well,_ _now I’ll never get my security deposit back._ Right as he’s about to start giggling, though, Tony probes at a place deep inside him with a single finger while his tongue circles his rim, and it robs Peter of sound.

It’s almost enough. Almost. But it doesn’t take Peter long to realize that’s clearly the intention. Tony’s _teasing_ him.

“You bastard,” he grinds out, fumbling around through the little grouping of nearby spices until he comes up with what he wants.

Without ever removing his torso from the counter, he thrusts the glass olive oil dispenser back. Tony muffles a laugh against his hip, but willingly takes the bottle.

“You sure about this, kid?” he asks, voice a rattle in the back of his throat.

Peter cranes his neck around to look at him, his face serious, questioning.

It’s comforting that he seems both unsure, and nearly as wrecked as Peter feels – hair mussed, mouth red and puffy, pupils blown. And maybe Peter isn’t sure about a lot of things, like how he’ll be able to keep it together around Tony afterwards, with a broken heart and the new knowledge of what it’s like with himself at the center of all the man’s attention. But that’s for another time. Right now he’s so empty and so on edge, and he wants Tony as close as he can possibly get him.

“C’mon, sir,” he says, with as much bravado as he can muster in the moment. “Stop teasing.”

The smile flows across Tony’s face, transforming it. He bites playfully at Peter’s flank and then, with little warning, sinks two oiled fingers deep inside him.

“Fuuuu—” Peter says, the words punched out of him.

“That’s the general idea,” he hears Tony mutter, and he reaches back to slap Tony’s shoulder.

After a few more minutes of prepping, Tony folds himself over Peter like a blanket, the warmth of his body making him go limp and gooey. He can hear him fumbling with the zipper of his jeans, and the idea that he’s been fully clothed this whole time sends a jolt through Peter’s body.

“Easy, easy,” Tony soothes, one arm hooked around Peter’s shoulders so he can place one rough palm on his chest.

There’s incredible pressure and stretch, and then a toe-curling ache as he presses home in one smooth, unhurried movement.

Tony’s lips trail across Peter’s sweaty shoulders, his hoodie in complete disarray now.

“Shit, Pete, you feel so good,” he whispers in Peter’s ear, and holds himself there at his deepest point for one beat, two, before drawing back and slamming forward.

Peter floats with the feeling of Tony pounding inside him. More of the counter crumbles away under his touch when it’s accompanied by the scrape of teeth against his back. He’s enveloped and overcome. Then Tony reaches down and takes him in hand, sliding along Peter’s length with the same rhythm that he presses forward, and he isn’t floating anymore, he’s falling. Falling with the rush of wind in his ears, and his heart beating wildly with adrenaline and pleasure, then hitting the ground and shattering into a thousand tiny pieces.

When Peter’s brain begins to slowly reassemble itself, it’s to the feeling of Tony’s fingers digging into his clavicle while he pulses inside of him, forehead tipped in to the nape of Peter’s neck. They lay there on the counter for a long while, breathing together.

When Peter attempts to speak, it comes out a garbled mess.

Tony just laughs at runs his fingers through Peter’s sweat-soaked hair.

“Not exactly with me, are you sweetheart?” he says for the second time that day.

Then he’s gently turning Peter over, pulling up his boxers and settling him on the counter once more. He runs a thumb over the grumpy wrinkle that forms between Peter’s eyebrows and smiles. It’s a tiny, perfect smile just for him.

“I think I broke some stuff,” Peter says, blearily.

Tony’s gaze shifts over his shoulder to the ruined edge of the counter.

“Hmm,” he says, with a wicked smirk. “Kind of feel like that one’s on me.”

He still hasn’t stopped touching Peter, hands migrating from between his brows down to the hinge of his jaw. He wants to sink into the warm touch, let his body melt, cat-like into it. So … he does. Somewhere in the back of his mind, something niggles. It’s a reminder that would be screaming at him if he weren’t so fucked out and exhausted. That he shouldn’t be too clingy. That Tony won’t like it.

Instead of recoiling, though, the other man sinks forward too, letting his arms wrap around Peter’s middle.

“How’s about you put those spidey powers to use and hold tight, huh?” Tony says. “I, for one, am ready for bed.”

Peter follows instructions and clings, allowing himself to be carried to the darkened bedroom. It’s not the most graceful he’s ever felt, but he very much likes being this close, drinking in Tony’s musk, motor oil, lemongrass scent.

“Don’t be mad,” Tony says into his hair when he sets Peter down on the bed, and for a moment he knows it’s because he’s going to leave, run away as fast as he can now that the reality of what they’ve done is sinking in. The bottom drops out of Peter’s stomach.

A split second later, though, he notices the feel of the mattress beneath him. It’s startling cloud-like and lacking the signature poking springs of Peter’s mattress. And it’s covered in a silky material nothing like his old jersey set.

“Did you get me a new bed?” he asks, frowning up at Tony.

He once again tries to rub out the wrinkle from between Peter’s brows.

“I said _don’t_ be mad. It’s just that if I tried to sleep on your old one I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t be able to get up again.”

He should probably object, but he’s a little caught up in the part where Tony’s planning on sleeping in the bed with Peter. He knew that’s how it was going to work on an academic level, but it’s nothing like facing the reality right here, right now. Of watching Tony shuck off his jeans and pull off his shirt in the light from the streetlamp that filters through his window, the lines of him blurry like a sketch.

He feels the mattress sink when Tony climbs in on the opposite side, senses the other man settle in beside him, and Peter has to turn his back to him, afraid his face will show everything he’s thinking. It’s all been a flicker, a moment he doesn’t get to keep. Now that he’s pulling out of the post-orgasm fog, Peter’s eyes prickle and his chest aches. It’s not that he didn’t want to sleep with Tony, he definitely did. Wanted every moment.

The problem is he hasn’t stopped wanting it now that it’s over, doesn’t know if he ever will. And Tony? Well, Peter doesn’t think he’s really _like that_ when it comes to sex, at least not since he and Pepper broke up. Happy’s told him so many stories about Tony’s antics in the days before Pepper entered the picture, the flirting, and the one night stands, and the way he never even stuck around for the awkward morning after. Will he slip out of bed before Peter wakes tomorrow? Will he stay, and just pretend like nothing much has changed? The possibilities only add to the growing hollow place in Peter’s center.

He grits his teeth and curls in on himself. From behind him, there’s a rustling of sheets and a further dipping in the mattress. Then Peter feels heat at his back, an arm slipping around his waist.

“You think very loudly,” Tony says, hooking his chin over Peter’s shoulder.

“Sorry,” Peter whispers back, swallowing around a lump in his throat. “Didn’t mean to keep you up.”

“Anything I can do?” Tony asks, nuzzling into the side of Peter’s neck, his beard tickling.

“No,” he says, then desperately. “Just a little cold?”

He feels Tony’s smile spread against his skin.

“C’mere,” he says, pulling Peter in a little closer and tangling their legs together. “Sleep now.”

The warmth spreads throughout his body, and if it doesn’t completely banish the cold spot in his core, well, Peter suspects that’s something he’s going to have to learn to live with. It takes a long, long time, but eventually he falls asleep with Tony snoring softly against his back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much to everyone who left encouraging comments and kudos on the first chapter. I hope you continue to enjoy yourselves with this one, even if it did get way hornier than I expected it to this early in the story. Oh well, follow the muse I guess?


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